The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (46 page)

Put out the cat

Take in the clothes

off of the line

Take a walk,

buy cigarettes

two teen-agers whistle

as I walk up

They say: “Only your hairdresser

knows for sure!”

Then they say,

“ulp!”

because I am closer to them.

They see I am not hippie kid, frail like Mick Jagger,

but some horrible 35 year old big guy!

The neighborhood I live in is mine!

“How’d you like a broken head, kid?”

I say fiercely.

(but I am laughing & they are not one bit scared.)

So, I go home.

Alice Clifford waits me. Soon she’ll die

at the Greenwood Nursing Home; my mother’s

mother, 79 years & 7 months old.

But first, a nap, til my mother comes home

from work, with the car.

The heart stops briefly when someone dies,

a quick pain as you hear the news, & someone passes

from your outside life to inside. Slowly the heart adjusts

to its new weight, & slowly everything continues, sanely.

Living’s a pleasure:

I’d like to take the whole trip

despite the possible indignities of growing old,

moving, to die in poverty, among strangers:

that can’t be helped.

So, everything, now

is just all right.                                           I’m with you.

No more last night.

Friday’s great

10 o’clock morning sun is shining!

I can hear today’s key sounds fading softly

& almost see opening sleep’s epic novels.